Massive Muffins

If you have an Xbox 360, you've probably heard of Mass Effect. And if you haven't, you should keep reading. Now two games strong, and with a third and advertised final game on the way, it is, in my opinion, the best single player experience the 360 has to offer.

Mass Effect entered the world of gaming in 2007, shortly after the launch of Halo 3. Unfortunately I didn't get to pick it up until 3 months ago...so it's not exactly new news.

Mass Effect opens with the character creation business. This could have used some work. As interesting as it is, unless you choose the default Shepard, you will almost indefinitely end up looking like a space-pedophile. Luckily, my attempt at a character only resulted in giving him a parrot as a great-grandfather. You then get the joy of choosing between a few different classes, and your options are pretty much this: Weapons or abilities. You carry four weapons with you, the assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and pistol, no matter the class you choose. Turns out though, that Shepard likes to lug around stuff he doesn't need, because unless you choose to be a soldier, you are "untrained" on at least two of your guns. This made me sad at times, as I decided I liked killing people Carmine-style, and sniper rifles are not made for removing an enemy's lower half.

After you've completed your Shepard, you're off to save the galaxy. Literally the entire galaxy is riding on you. I won't spoil the story for those who actually don't know what I'm talking about, because it's the best thing about the game, but basically doom is coming, and no one else believes you. So you set off in your shiny ship, gather a bunch of bros and gals who believe you, and you go stop it.

The story telling method itself is what will make or break the game for a player, as it's what you do most often. It's told almost entirely through conversations you can control the flow of whenever the magic wheel pops up. Critical choices are made throughout the game in this mode, so you'll want to pay attention. There are pretty much two ways to approach every situation. You're either the good-natured, universe-loving hero (the "Paragon"), or the douche-bag, bad-ass (the "Renegade"). To choose the best convo options for either, you'll either want to dump points into charm or intimidate...which is annoying, as those points would be better served making things die faster. I generally stuck to being the "nice guy", but luckily you can still choose to be a dick when you feel like it.

Regardless of which path you follow, the main story pretty much plays out the same. There are enough "choices" (mainly of who dies or not and who you get to have as a "special friend") that the game is worth playing through twice, which apparently is encouraged, as there's an achievement for it.

The game itself plays as a third person shooter which feels a little lighter and more fluid than Gears of War. The only problem is, to get to the smoothness you need to first break through the concrete shell you're teeth are forcibly crushed down on at the start. The game tells you very little about how it is to be played, which, once you figure it out for yourself, is fantastic the second time through. At first though, you may have those moments of: "What just happened, and how the crap did I do it?" Once you get to the creamy center however, you only encounter the occasional piece of gravel.

As tasty as the combat system is, the inventory screen is one of those gravely-bits. You will come across many guns, armors, and upgrades as you screw around in the universe, but will quickly find only a very few of them actually do anything useful. You also eventually run out of pockets on your space-armor, so you either need to reduce stuff into jelly, or hopefully sell it at one of the few and far-between shops you come across.

The other teeth-breaking bit worth mentioning are the vehicle sections. While I found it fun rolling about a few acres on a planet in a tank with jump-jets, cutting through enemies as if I were simply mowing the lawn, you quickly come to have a bit of disdain for it. Not your little tank, mind you, but for the RIDICULOUS terrain you are sometimes made to trek over. The game designers seem to have a mountain fetish, and it gets frustratingly annoying fast.

The tastiness of Mass Effect is easily worth a chipped tooth or two though, especially when you go back for seconds.

Mass Effect 2 does everything the first game did...but it replaces the stony-bits with nutty-bits. Overall the game feels more polished. The story remains the best part, and is on-par with the first's. The game's start is nicer to you, still throwing you right into being shot at, but at least having the courtesy to inform you how to shoot back. The character classes are all still there, but you only carry weapons you're capable of using. The combat in general is more refined and fun, making you want more. Apparently orbital-bombardment tanks are for the poor, so you now get a shiny shuttle to pamper-you to the surface. The paragon/renegade system is entirely conversation dependent (with the occasional awesome quick-time event...I pushed a dude out a 10,000th-something window), and the inventory and level management are refined and user-friendly. In fact, the only noteworthy issue with the second game is the tedious resource mining for upgrades (I will say it was fantastic when the computer gave me sass for probing Uranus).

So far, the Mass Effect series is simply awesome. If you focus only on the story missions themselves, you're looking at about 12 hours for the first game and 20 for the second (if you don't want your entire crew to die, that is). That's the other thing; as mentioned, this is a series of games. I highly recommend playing through Mass Effect, investing in your character and their decisions, importing them into the next game and continuing on. It makes for one of the most personal games available, and is truly a worthwhile endeavor.

But hey, if all that isn't enough, at least you can get some virtual booty.

> EpicError